Regional city price growth continues to support London slump: Hometrack

Prices fell in 29 local authorities covering London and the commuter belt over the past 12 months. The wealthy borough of Kensington in Chelsea suffered the worst year-on-year fall, with prices falling 4.9% to an average of £1.17 million.

However, the analysis also reveals that the number of London postcodes registering month-on-month price falls has dropped to 44% from a peak of 70% in December 2017.

This means that 56% of postcodes are now registering month-on-month price gains and Hometrack believes the proportion of markets registering annual price falls will slow further over the rest of the year.

Although London registered a 0.4% decline year-on-year, lower value markets in outer and surrounding London have registered modest price rises over the last year.

Prices in Barking and Dagenham rose 2.3% year-on-year to an average of £296,400, followed by Havering, Spelthorne and Bexley at 1.4%.

Across the UK, prices are rising fastest on an annual basis in Liverpool (+6.9%), followed by Birmingham (6.5%), Leicester (+6.4%), Manchester (+6.2%) and Glasgow (+6.2%).

With growth of over 6%, house price inflation in these five cities remains more than twice the rate of earnings growth (2.7%) as prices continue to rise off a low base and affordability remains attractive.

Richard Donnell, insight director at Hometrack, said: “London’s housing market has registered a major slowdown in price growth over the last two years as stretched affordability levels, multiple tax changes and weaker market sentiment have all impacted the demand for housing. Turnover has fallen much more than prices which tend to be ‘stickier’ on the way down with few households being forced sellers.

“Our latest analysis reveals price falls are concentrated in inner London while values continue to rise slowly in the most affordable parts of outer London and the main commuter areas. Price growth has firmed over the last six months but the annual rate of growth remains negative and we expect the current re-pricing process to run into 2019.

“City level house price growth remains well above average in the most affordable cities. While the rate of growth has moderated slightly prices in five cities are still rising twice as fast as the growth in earnings. We expect continued price growth in the most affordable markets over the remainder of the year.”